


The Maple Bay Dogman

by ClockworkCourier



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Cryptids, Cryptozoology, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Making Out, Mothman Erasure, Paranormal, Pineapple pizza, Shapeshifting, Sloppy Makeouts, Tumblr Prompt, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 15:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11649735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkCourier/pseuds/ClockworkCourier
Summary: Everything is the same. New guy moves in with a cool daughter who kicks the for sale sign down. People drink a lot. Dogs are mentioned. Cryptids are hunted.And Bad Dad just so happens to be an unassuming and completely unaware cryptid himself. Nifty.





	The Maple Bay Dogman

**Author's Note:**

> I have nine other Robert fics in my Drive account. Five of them are deep and emotional. Four are kind of funny but still pretty profound.
> 
> The first one I post is this one.
> 
> I'm so sorry but I'm not actually all that sorry at all.
> 
> (And [here is my dadsona](http://jaradraws.tumblr.com/post/163266355083/a-dadsona-i-did-for-radiojamming-a-good-n)! He's round, he's cute, he digs up stuff for funsies, and he loves the Mothman unapologetically! Fifty million kudos to the most wonderful [Jara](http://jara257.tumblr.com/) who is a bright and beautiful star in my sky.)
> 
> EDIT: I'd be totally remiss to not put in the [amazing prompt](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com/post/163524924906/can-you-imagine-if-robert-was-a-werewolf-or-a) that started this, from the very lovely [zunshtral](http://zunshtral.tumblr.com/) ([AO3 here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/zunshtral/pseuds/zunshtral)). THANK U HONEY!

Forum posting from the Maple Bay Paranormal Society’s forum, dated June 19th:  
  
_jrowbeerhunter72_  
_⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2007  
_‘_ _Everyday above ground is a good day_ _’_ __  
  
TOPIC: Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!  
  
Hey y’all!  
  
So I know that I was supposed to do a post about the SuperShopper ghost, and I promise that’s in my drafts. But I am still freaking out about what happened last night. I am way over one hundred percent sure I saw the Maple Bay Dogman.  
  
We were coming back from a wedding last night which took us on Route 4 by the state park. It was probably 11 pm or so, and all I really remember is that Tracy said she was hungry so we figured we’d stop at the diner just off the highway. Right when we passed the sign leading into the campground, we saw this  HUGE thing crossing the road. I slammed the brakes on and Tracy screamed. At first we thought it was a deer, but it was way bigger than any deer we have around here!  
  
I only saw part of it after we stopped the car. I know this thing was absolutely massive and covered in hair, and it was hard to tell if it was walking on two feet or four because it was hunched over. I wanted to get out of the car and take a look but Tracy was absolutely losing her mind and telling me we needed to get home ASAP. We only saw it for a few seconds after that and not long enough for me to get the camera out and get a good picture. I tried to take one out of the car window, but all I really got in the picture was the woods. I definitely want to head back up there tonight or tomorrow and see if I can catch it again.  
  
I’m mostly going on the 2013 sighting that was in the same area that polishboypatrick posted (that links back to his post), but Patrick said he saw something really similar out there.  
  
Has anyone else seen this thing or anything odd up in that area?  
  
  
_mackdaddy990099_  
_⋆⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2013  
_‘_ _The price of victory isn_ _’_ _t cheap_ _’_  
  
TOPIC: Re: _Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!_  
  
good to see you back jrow! it was awesome meeting up with you back at the paranormal picnic in april. can’t wait to see the supershopper ghost write-up!☺  
  
i haven’t seen the dogman myself but i’ve been up on route 4 at night and it gets real spooky up there. i don’t doubt what you saw and i’d definitely like to go up there for myself and see!  
  
  
_mustangmolly_  
_⋆⋆⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2011  
_‘_ _Writer, baker, part-time undertaker_ _’_ __  
  
TOPIC: Re: Re: _Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!_

 

Woah, that must have been freaky! Todd and I have taken the girls up there a few times every year, but we haven’t gone at night yet. Is there any possibility that you saw a bear, though? I know there aren’t too many out this way except the occasional black bear, but if it was hunched the way you said and you couldn’t tell if it was on 2 or 4 legs, that almost makes me think of a bear.  
  
Not saying you didn’t see what you think you saw, but I’m just a skeptic by nature. ☺☺☺ Either way, more encouragement not to go at night!  
  
  
_jrowbeerhunter72_  
_⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2007  
_‘_ _Everyday above ground is a good day_ _’_ __  
  
TOPIC: Re: Re: Re: _Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!_  
  
Definitely  not a bear. Tracy thought it might have been, but I’ve seen bears out west and this thing looked nothing like them. I’m going back tonight with a few friends to see if there’s any prints left on the ground. But I figured if it’s anything like when Patrick saw it, there won’t be much left to find.  
  
We did call the newspaper yesterday, but they brushed me off like always. Typical media.  
  
  
_rsvsranger_  
_⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2002  
_‘_ _If it bleeds, we can kill it_ _’_ __  
  
TOPIC: Re: Re: Re: Re: _Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!_  
  
i’ll head up there later and check it out but p sure it’s a bear or a coyote or whatever  
  
  
_mackdaddy990099_  
_⋆⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2013  
_‘_ _The price of victory isn_ _’_ _t cheap_ _’_  
  
TOPIC: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: _Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!_  
  
HOLY HECK RSVSRANGER’S GOING?  
  
WOAH WOAH WOAH NOW I HAVE TO GO UP THERE  
  
  
_piratebabe2_  
_⋆⋆_ __  
Member since 2014  
_‘_ _C_ _’_ _est la vie!_ _’_ __  
  
TOPIC: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: _Maple Bay Dogman sighting!!!_  
  
celebrity sighting lol!! hopefully u find something cool!  


* * *

  
Coffee wasn’t enough to magically clear up all the fog in Robert’s head. He was still bleary and nauseous at noon, standing in nothing but an old mechanic shop t-shirt and a pair of swim trunks, watching the movers hustling in and out of a van down the street. The for sale sign was still up, but the furniture they were bringing in definitely suggested permanent residence. Bless them, whoever they were. They were definitely coming into a circus of a neighborhood.  
  
The best thing about the day so far was that the weather looked downright shitty. There were gunmetal clouds on the horizon, steadily pushing any hope of sunlight further and further out towards the bay. So no snarling lawnmower sounds from Joseph’s house, or screeching kids from any house at all, or anything that might push his hangover into straight peril levels.  
  
He turned away and shut the door behind him, pausing just long enough to survey last night’s damage. If the pounding in his head was any indicator, then it had been one _hell_ of a night. The rug under the coffee table was tucked up on one side, and on the endtable one of his matching garage sale knock-off Wedgwood vases was on its side next to a shattered picture frame showing some smiling stock photo family that he never bothered to switch out. A few curtains had nearly sprung loose from their rods, and half of his mail was on the floor rather than strewn out across the dining table like usual. It wasn’t the worst it could have been, but he did lament a souvenir shot glass that Mary had gotten him from New Jersey. The little Jersey Devil on it was cracked right through the middle, bisected from head to spike-tail. It was the only sad casualty of his blackout.  
  
He sighed and nudged aside a few stray dog toys with his foot while Betsy snoozed on one of her multiple dog beds. He _could_ clean, theoretically. There wasn’t exactly anything on his schedule that would keep him from sweeping up or maybe doing a few rounds of laundry. There were definitely a few dishes begging for cleaning, and grocery shopping had been on his to-do list for at least three weeks.  
  
But he also could do _none_ of those things.  
  
He opted for sitting and stretching out on the one halfway clean couch. His coffee was too heavy on dregs, but he was going to be the absolute last person to complain. The Advil hadn’t kicked in yet, and he wasn’t about to call Mary up and ask for one of her patented hangover cures. He could weather this one just fine, like always.  
  
The thing that just outright sucked was that he was getting worse at remembering what had happened. Either he was getting old for sure, his liver and his brain were finally rebelling, or he was just too tired to put up a fight against the black tide of on-the-floor drunkenness. Maybe it was all three. The best he could do was remember getting to the bar and ordering his first drink. The last thing was ordering his first drink.  
  
With a groan, he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, trying to possibly stymie his headache physically.  
  
“Fuck fuckity _fuck_ ,” he said as eloquently as possible, and to no one but himself.  
  
Well, as his dad had put it, once you were at rock bottom, there weren’t too many places to go.  
  
His dad must have known that his son had the unique ability to dig past the metaphorical bedrock.  


* * *

  
Mister One House Down, as Robert took to calling him, was just about the last thing he expected to see getting out of a downright ancient Land Rover. He couldn’t have been more than five and a half feet tall, and Robert would be remiss to not compare him to an honest to god Hobbit. Every feature looked softened in some way, except when the guy hoisted a computer chair right over his head like it weighed nothing. If he hadn’t already gotten everyone’s attention on the basis of being new, he definitely could get a glance for having hair the color of a fire engine. Red would go down the driveway, and Red would come right back up, now hauling a wheelbarrow full of boxes.  
  
His daughter was a pistol for sure. She did cartwheels down the driveway when she went to get another box from the Land Rover. She karate-kicked a broken canvas chair down the lawn before her dad poked his extremely red head out to tell her to throw it in the trash can like a normal human. And even from day one, Robert knew that she and her dad were some sort of freaky tag team of disaster.  
  
Robert had seen them at Mat’s coffee shop after Mat had sworn up and down that his espresso shots had one leg up on any hangover cure Mary could make in a blender. It automatically was better purely because, unlike Mary’s alchemical creations, it didn’t have anything in it like a whole avocado or pieces of hard salami. Nothing about Mat’s coffee tempted Robert to pass it off to Craig as a protein drink.  
  
One House Down and Pistol Daughter came in halfway through his drink, eagerly chatting with Mat like they were regulars. One House Down got Mat talking about bands, then about coffee, and then about bananas, for some reason. That wasn’t what got Robert’s attention, though. He just looked up at One House Down and couldn’t seem to look _away_. He didn’t know if it was the hair (holy shit how was it so _red_ ) or the neon blue bandana he wore like a headband, or the glasses, or his t-shirt with a cartoon King Tut over the words _STAY GOLD_. Maybe it was even how he talked, like he was one second from bursting into laughter. Maybe it was just the whole damn ensemble.  
  
Finally, the guy looked at him, still grinning. Common sense, or propriety, or awkwardness with strangers made Robert look away. When he did look back up, One House Down was inhaling his coffee like a Hoover while Pistol Daughter seemed bent on hamster-hiding the rest of the banana bread Mat had given them. Pistol Daughter attempted to say something, but managed to spray banana bread crumbs on her dad in the process, and the two of them dissolved into laughter, with One House Down actually _wheezing._  
  
This time, Robert looked away and didn’t look back up.  
  
Sure, he was bitter. It was definitely poetic, between his hash of bad one night stands and bad relationships, his stereotypical negligent dad horseshit that he brought on himself, his drinking problem, his smoking problem, his general ‘My name is Robert Small and I exist’ problem. Hell, even his coffee was less bitter than him. He had people roughly in the general area of his corner, but Mary had enough problems to sink her husband’s godforsaken yacht, and Damien didn’t need one more thing to send him into a conniption. The best Robert could do was either tell Neil his problems before making himself sick on the bar pretzels of pathos, or use Betsy as his live-in therapist.  
  
He swallowed the rest of his espresso without so much as a cringe. But he nicely set his cup down like a decent human, rather than slamming it down like a whiskey glass. He had a little propriety.  
  
Just, fuck people with working relationships with their family. Fuck One House Down and his badass daughter and all their cleverly-named coffee and banana bread. Fuck their car and their ironic lawn gnomes and their witty t-shirts. Fuck the fact that they weren’t Stepford happy like the Christiansens, and not soccer dad happy like the Cahns. They were just _happy_ , and Robert wasn’t. Therefore, fuck them.  
  
And firmly fuck espresso. Robert didn’t even like it.  
  
He stood up, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and feeling a scowl already starting to form. If he had a toothpick, or if he could have cigarettes in the coffee shop, he would have had one clenched between his teeth.  
  
Robert promptly went back up to the counter and ordered a Sugar Spoon Frappuccino, complete with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle.  
  
Because fuck all.

* * *

  
No, seriously. _Fuck all._  
  
There was a long story, but Robert didn’t want to pick through it for all the fine details. There was a short story, but Robert hated small talk.  
  
The medium story was this: One House Down, now better identified as one Mister Shane Arnarsson, father of Amanda, had been at Jim and Kim’s, sticking out more than... well, frankly, a neon redhead at a bar full of average blue collar people. He and Robert regrettable small-talked about The Game, talked some more, and continued talking. In the time that it took to go through several average conversation subjects, Robert came to a few conclusions, only slightly aided by multiple whiskeys.  
  
One, that Shane was single. A single dad, specifically. Kismet, right?  
  
Two, that Shane was actually kind of a cool guy. Yes, he drank a terrible IPA with some artsy label. And yes, although fair in the scheme of things, he rooted for the wrong sportsball teams. But he was a decent guy with a good sense of humor. That was nice.  
  
Three.  
  
Shit, conclusion three was that he was cute. Attractive, maybe. Handsome? Yeah, that was fair. There were better words than cute, but Robert wasn’t actively seeking those out so much as he was actively seeking a way out of his situation. It was one that, on principle, typically ended badly. As the self-anointed Patron Saint of Bad Drunken and Sober Decisions, Robert felt that godforsaken stirring that he had gotten to know way too well over the years. It was the one that usually had him waking up in the aftermath of a house-sized tornado, not remembering the night before. It was that nasty urge to try, once again, to fill what ever odd-sized toddler toy-esque gaps were left in his heart or soul or metaphorical seat for the cesspool of feelings he had or didn’t have. Drinking never did the job, so one night stands tended to be the next best thing.  
  
There was something about a band-aid on a mortal wound that came to mind at the thought, but Robert ignored it.  
  
So, here comes the fuck all part. He propositioned Shane right in front of his goddamn house. He, in all his great Robertly wisdom, tried to get in the pants of a guy he had just met and begrudged because of his adorable family dynamic and tendency to actually get along with his kid. Hell, Amanda could have been looking out the window at that moment, and Robert _still_ made the offer.  
  
Thankfully, and also horribly, Shane just blushed right to the ears, staring down hard at the concrete. “Hey, listen,” he said. He shifted in his Chucks, because of _course_ he wore Chucks. “I gotta get home. I’ll talk to you later though? Maybe see you around and get another drink?”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be fine,” Robert heard himself say. He didn’t even feel like he was in control of his own face. Awesome.  
  
Shane grinned at him and went back to his One House Down, hands in his pockets and walking in an exaggerated heel-toe-heel-toe pattern. Robert watched him walk the whole way, all the way up until the front door closed. And even then, he just stared, a little abashed, a whole lot of frustrated, and generally just fighting the urge to drink until sunrise just to get the image of Shane out of his head.  
  
It wasn’t his own stupid propositioned that bothered him. And it wasn’t even the fact that he found Shane worth propositioning. It was the fact that Shane left that whole exchange open-ended, like he actively wanted to seek Robert out again and hang out. He left him a line, for god’s sakes. And like the big sap he was, Robert agreed, meaning he’d have to talk to him again after all of that, knowing full well that he wanted that stupid King Tut shirt on his floor. They’d have to do pleasantries and Robert would have to ask him about his _job_ and his _kid_ and all that small talk.  
  
He wasn’t going to fight the urge to drink at all.  
  
He stormed back into his house, slamming his door with way more force than he intended so that he set Betsy into a barking frenzy. She yipped and danced all around him, bouncing up and down until he sighed and kneeled down to pet her back into calmness.  
  
“Easy, little lady,” he said, far gruffer than he intended. Betsy, of all living creatures, deserved him at his best, even as his designated therapist. “It’s just me. _Fortunately,_ just me.” Then, he leaned in, eyes flicking back and forth conspiratorially. “No demonic latch-ons or the _Others._ I fended them off on the way here.”  
  
She finally calmed down, her tongue lolling out of her mouth and her eyes going two different ways. Once she ran around in circles and sprawled out on one of her beds, Robert finally got up to raid the liquor cabinet for all it was worth. And before groceries, it wasn’t worth very much at all.  
  
Save one dusty bottle in the back that he hadn’t touched in nearly three decades.  
  
He glared at it accusingly, weighing his options, and then weighing the collective weight of the murk and mire of all his emotions and subsequent baggage. One outweighed the other, and once more, Robert was stuck with horrible gasoline-flavored whiskey and being all maudlin until he passed out.  


* * *

  
Robert woke to the brain-wracking sound of the doorbell. He groaned, stirred a little, and slowly came to the realization that his mouth tasted like literal death. It was an actual Olympic struggle to open his eyes completely, and even then, it wasn’t like he could see much anyway. The first thing he saw was the back of his couch, and the second thing was the blur that was the rest of the room. His eyes had definitely gotten a firm dusting of straight up sand at one point in the night, and there wasn’t enough Visine in the world to reverse that problem.  
  
He took a moment to try to get a grip on his place in the universe, the earth, the state, Maple Bay, and eventually his house when the doorbell rang again, the sound going straight for the brain stem.  
  
“Coming,” he coughed more than said. Forget Olympic effort. It was a goddamn _Atlas_ effort to get off the couch at all. He felt like a newborn deer, trying to find his legs while they resolutely attempted to forget they had muscle mass at all. He swore a few times, more unintelligible than anything, and stumbled roughly in the direction of the front door.  
  
This time, there was no weather to be thankful for. He fumbled for the door handle and opened the door up to the most stunningly beautiful day that Maple Bay had had in weeks. The sun was bright in a clear blue sky, and the only clouds to be seen were white and fluffy as sheep’s wool. It was absolutely perfect.  
  
Robert hissed and tried to back away from it.  
  
Oddly enough, his visitor didn’t. Damien stood awkwardly on the porch, looking concerned. “Pardon my intrusion, Robert. I didn’t mean to wake you so suddenly,” he said. Then, he blinked. “Are you alright? You look, ah...”  
  
Robert must have looked like death warmed over. Or, at least, the sucky part of death with the rigor mortis and the hazy eyes. Damien looked like _good_ death.  
  
“Uh,” Robert muttered. He leaned on the doorframe for support. “Comin’ down with something, I think. Whassamatter?”  
  
Damien cleared his throat and stood aside, gesturing behind him with a literal flourish of his cape (sorry, cloak) at the state of Robert’s front yard. “I came upon this sight while fetching the post this morning. I thought it might be a... pressing matter that needed to be brought to your attention.”  
  
The _sight_ was definitely something. It looked like someone had taken a backhoe to random sections of the grass, effectively clawing it to shreds and sending clods of dirt everywhere. The sidewalk was a mess, and there was a pretty sizeable chunk of turf on Joseph’s perfect, manicured lawn. It looked like a meteor had landed on it, and Robert would have thought it was hilarious if he wasn’t already low on emotions to offer.  
  
His emotion of choice at the moment was straight up confusion. There wasn’t room for much else.  
  
“Wha’ happen,” he said, or grumbled more than asked.  
  
“I’m afraid I haven’t a clue,” Damien lamented. He sounded like it was something he actually regretted. “I would chalk it up to some very poor excuse for a prank, but Lucien enjoys your company enough to not sink that low, and even Hugo’s son wouldn’t--”  
  
Robert waved it off, and nearly lost his balance even doing that little. “Yeah, yeah. They wouldn’t.”  
  
At that exact moment, One House Down opened up and Shane walked onto the porch, grabbing the newspaper. He paused when he noticed Robert and Damien, and then waved enthusiastically. His hair was so obnoxiously red in the sun that it actually felt like it made Robert’s hangover _worse._  
  
Then, a slow, murky realization began to work in the corner of Robert’s brain that actually chose to function above basic human id-level needs. _He wouldn’t,_ he thought. Or, almost thought. The words were swimming more than scrolling through his head. Even though last night’s memories were kind of a blur now, Robert knew what he had asked of Shane, and he knew Shane had turned him down. Not that Robert wasn’t sort of retrospectively grateful for that, but the hazy thought occurred that Shane might have actually been legitimately offended at the offer and decided to take it out on... the lawn.  
  
“Oh, is that the new neighbor?” Damien piped up, temporarily ignoring the warzone Robert’s lawn had become. “He looks delightful.”  
  
“Huh. Yeah.” Robert then frowned at the lawn again. “I’m gonna... I dunno, fix that. Today. Maybe.”  
  
“Oh. Of course,” Damien said, looking back at Robert. “If you need my assistance, do not hesitate to visit my abode and inquire.”  
  
“Sure. Yeah. Thanks.” It was all one word answers now, but Robert felt like that was all he could muster from himself. His brain felt overtaxed, and after Damien bid him _adieu_ and all that fancy cape-twirling business, Robert quickly retreated to the coolest, darkest place in the house.  
  
He sat on the toilet lid in the dark and tried to will his head back to a decent functioning level.  
  
He really didn’t want to think that Shane would do something like that, even if the guy was new here. That wasn’t a good way to make first impressions, and since everyone sort of knew everyone else and their kids, it wouldn’t be hard to pinpoint who the culprit was. Even then, there was still an unlikelihood there. The lawn looked like it had been hacked up one end to the other in a way that might have required some serious effort, and it would have been way easier for Shane to egg his house or leave something unsavory on his porch if he was that pissed off.  
  
Robert chalked it up to animals for the moment. Big ones, and ones that specifically chose his lawn to roll around and destroy. Definitely not his new neighbor, and definitely not the neighbor he had attempted to sleep with the night before.  
  
He groaned again, pressing his palms against his eyes and pressing lightly. Little sparks jumped in his vision, and the pressure helped a little to ease the tiny drummer that had taken up residence in his skull.  
  
_Not Shane,_ it drummed, but far quieter this time. _Not-Shane-not-Shane-not-Shane._  
  
Not Shane, then. Robert decided to rule him out completely, or at least until he had the muscle power and the ability to go out in daylight to actually formally investigate his yard.  
  
He continued to sit in the bathroom, until he eventually was able to stand upright long enough to brush the death out of his mouth and take a shower, albeit in the dark.  
  
If he had turned the lights on, he might have seen the water turn dark as it washed off of him and swirled down the drain.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://radiojamming.tumblr.com)


End file.
